Billy Green warned the British
that the Americans were going to attack Stoney
Creek

It's late spring in Stoney Creek. The
woods are full of birdsong, the apple trees
Adam Green carried lovingly from New Jersey are in full, pink bloom.
Settlers are
busy with spring crops...

But there is dread in the air. Rumours of war are crackling
through the pioneer settlement.... the Yankees are coming!

It's June, 1813, and for the second time in less than three
decades, Britain and its former colony, America, are at war
again. Only this time nearly all the battlefields are in Canada.

War in Niagara! The tiny crossroads of Stoney Creek has been in a state
of
agitation since the news arrived. The British bastion at Fort George has
fallen! The
Americans, looking to
avenge humiliating
defeats at
Queenston and Detroit
have landed nearly 5,000 troops at
Newark, the present
site of
Niagara on the Lake
.... Fort
George is under the
Stars
and Stripes. Chippawa
and
Fort Erie are
abandoned.
The American fleet
controls
Lake Ontario. What
remains
of the battered British force has limped west to Burlington Heights
overlooking
what is now Hamilton Harbour.

A crucial role falls to a 19-year-old civilian -- Billy Green, the scout
who led an
army.

In 1794, in a crude log cabin hacked from the dense
Mountain bush above Saltfleet, Martha Green gave birth to
her 11th child. Billy, named after his father's
younger brother,
is the first white child born in the area.

Billy grows up an adventuresome loner and an
excellent
woodsman. From Burlington Heights to The Forty
(Grimsby)
he ranges freely over the Indian trails and animal tracks that
crisscross the thick
forest of oak, elm and pine that covers much of the area.

Billy's brother-in-law, Isaac Corman, is arrested .... when
Corman reveals his Kentucky birthplace, the American
officer smiles, shakes his head and tells Corman to go
home. Knowing that he'll be stopped by sentries, he gives
Corman a password.

Isaac Corman is about two miles from his home when he
meets Billy Green and repeats the three-syllable password
.... "I promised I wouldn't tell the British." "You won't,"
Billy says with a wink, "I will."

Back in Stoney Creek, the American army is making camp at Mary Gage's
farm.

Billy skirts wide around the American camp,
eluding
several soldiers in the bush. Leading his
brother's old plow
horse, Tip, Billy picks his way up the mountain on
a deer
path where he mounts and heads west toward
Burlington
Heights and the British Army.

Approaching the British encampment he is
challenged by a
red-coated sentry. "My name is Billy Green, I live
in
Stoney Creek .... there's a mighty big American
army there
.... I must see an officer. I have the password
for the
American lines."

With Billy in the advance party with the officers, the silent column
leaves the
Heights and heads east.

At Red Hill Creek the password is spoken to an American sentry,
sixteen inches of triangular steel moves. A soft gurgle and all is
quiet.

In Stoney Creek the still night air is rent with hundreds of war
whoops. The Americans are convinced they have been attacked
by the entire British army and surrounded by all the Indians in
Canada.

For a battle that lasted barely 40 minutes, the toll is appallingly
high. More than
300 men lie dead or wounded.

As the sun comes up, a British officer rides on
to the field
under a flag of truce ....
The invading American army is on its way back to
Fort
George, wishing they'd never heard of Stoney
Creek. The
dead they left behind are buried on the
battlefield by Billy
Green and four other Stoney Creek youths .... in
the old
church cemetery and on the knoll where the
American
artillery captain placed his guns.

The name of Billy Green is never mentioned in any of the
army's dispatches .... but the story of his exploits endures with
a curious tenacity in Stoney Creek. The story goes that Billy, a
keen drummer, was given a military drum after the battle
which he continued to play for years after ....

A century after the battle, a towering Battlefield Monument is
erected with the name of the British general who lost his horse,
his hat and his way during the battle, front and centre. Billy's
name is on the back, facing the bush.